


Kaverns & Kaiju

by BaronVonChop



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Fluff, Gen, Role-Playing Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 22:44:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9037985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaronVonChop/pseuds/BaronVonChop
Summary: Mako joins Newt's D&D campaign.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Crowtoed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowtoed/gifts).



> For Crowtoed's prompt, "Slice of life. D&D session." I LOVED this prompt. I hope you enjoy!

Mako Mori wandered through the corridors of the Hong Kong Shatterdome, trying to decide what to do with her day off. She had only arrived recently, and she still did not know her colleagues very well.

She saw Dr. Newton Geiszler up ahead, carrying a tote bag full of books and folders. Mako did not know quite what to make of Newt. He was undoubtedly a genius, though his intense enthusiasm for certain things sometimes baffled her. When he caught sight of her, Newt grinned and hurried over. “Hi, Mako!” he said. “Do you have any plans for today?”

“Not really,” said Mako. In addition to the books in Newt’s bag, she saw several loose sheets of graph paper covered with mysterious sketches. “How about you? It looks like you’re still doing research on your day off.”

Newt laughed. “Oh, this?” he said, indicating the bag, “This is for a game I’m about to run in the rec room. Have you ever heard of Dungeons & Dragons?”

“The name sounds familiar. I think some kids in my high school used to play that.” She didn’t mention that her closest encounter with Dungeons & Dragons had been when a nerdy boy in her freshman class had tried to impress her by bragging about his twelfth-level paladin, before reciting a poem in something he called Quenya.

“It’s really fun!” said Newt, his grin expanding to become slightly manic. “Hey, if you’re not doing anything else, you should come play!”

Mako hesitated. “Oh, well, I don’t know the rules….”

“Trust me, I’m sure Hermann would love to teach you the rules,” Newt said with a laugh. “What do you say? Want to roll some dice and save a kingdom?”

“That does sound fun, but I think I might pass.”

Newt shrugged. “It’s okay. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, I know. If you ever change your mind, we’re trying to set up a weekly game for Saturdays. I’m sure Hermann and Tendo would be happy to have a third person in their party.”

“Tendo?” Mako asked, her eyes widening. Tendo had always struck her as someone who was, to put it plainly, cool. She had not expected him to be part of Newt’s Dungeons & Dragons game.

“Yeah, Tendo’s joining us, too. Hermann thinks he’s only doing it to humor me, but I think that there’s something about adventuring in fantasy worlds with brave companions that appeals to everyone.”

“I think you’re right,” she said quickly.

Newt blinked, caught off guard. “I am? About what?”

“The appeal. Of adventure, I mean.”

“Really?” As Newt’s surprise faded, his enthusiasm resurfaced. “Does that mean you’ll join us?”

Mako decided to meet his enthusiasm with enthusiasm. “Verily, milord!” she exclaimed.

“Rock on!” Newt said, leading the way. “But, uh… you don’t have to talk like that.”

They arrived in the rec room, where Dr. Hermann Gottlieb and Tendo Choi were sitting at a table. Hermann had carefully laid out an assortment of objects on the table: several books of his own, some papers printouts, multiple pencils, and a neat stack of dice. Tendo tipped his chair back on its hind legs and rocked it back and forth, his attention focused on Hermann explaining something.

Tendo and Hermann turned when they saw Mako and Newt. Hermann stood and actually bowed his head a little to Mako. “Hello, Miss Mori. Will you be joining us?”

“I would like to, if that’s okay,” said Mako.

“Of course!” Hermann exclaimed. “Please, sit.”

Mako sat, and Newt took the remaining chair across from her. He dumped the contents of his bag onto the table and arranged them quickly. “So, to begin, we should make your characters. Have you thought about what you’d like to play?”

Tendo said, “Well, Hermann was telling me the options, and they all sound pretty cool.”

“So what will it be?” Newt asked. “A beefy barbarian? A mystical wizard?”

“Nah, I’m gonna be a bard.”

“Awesome!” Newt exclaimed.

“Wait a moment!” Hermann cried. He looked at Tendo, aghast. “Are you sure? Out of all those classes I told you about, you want to play a bard?”

Tendo looked from Hermann to Newt and back. Newt was grinning, while Hermann looked concerned. “Yeah, I think it sounds fun. Is that okay?”

Hermann sighed. “Well, in a party of three characters, the ideal composition--”

“Yeah, of course it’s okay!” Newt said. “D&D is a game about possibilities. The only limits are your imagination!”

“Cool!” said Tendo. “Next game, I’ll bring along my guitar.”

“Now let’s not get carried away,” Hermann grumbled. “This isn’t a LARP.”

Newt nudged Hermann. “Come on, that would totally rule!” He looked at Mako, inviting her to weigh in.

“I think it would be great,” said Mako.

Hermann gave in. “Well, all right,” he said. “But at the first sign of a cloak…” He trailed off with a meaningful look at Newt.

Newt paid Hermann no attention. Instead, he asked Tendo, “Which race would you like your bard to be?”

“The dragonborn looks pretty rad!”

Hermann scoffed, “That…” Seeing Tendo’s worried look, he reconsidered for a moment, then gave a grudging nod. “That might be pretty interesting, actually.”

“Totally metal,” Newt agreed, beaming and throwing the horns. “Okay, so you’ll also need a name”

“Jerome!” Tendo announced instantly. Mako and Newt burst into laughter. Hermann shrugged.

Newt opened a rulebook and handed it to Mako. “Your turn! Look through the options for races and classes, and let me know what you like.”

Mako took a few minutes to skim the book, examining the pictures and reading bits of the descriptions. When she reached a decision, a small smile tugged up her lips. “Well, I’ve been training to pilot a Jaeger, so I’m very nearly a Ranger already. I think I’ll play one in the game, too.” Newt and Tendo laughed, and Hermann gave her a smile. Encouraged, she continued, “And I think playing an elf sounds like fun.”

“Cool!” said Newt.

Hermann nodded. “An elf ranger is a classic choice.”

“What’s her name?” Newt asked.

“What do elf names sound like?”

“There are lots of elf cultures in my world,” Newt said. “Pick a name that you think sounds right for an elf, and I am sure it will fit into at least one of those cultures.”

Mako tried out a few names in her head, trying to get one that felt right. “How about Nalia?”

Tendo beamed. “That’s a lovely name!”

“Yeah, it rules!” Newt agreed. He turned to Hermann. “How about you? I’d be surprised if you haven’t already rolled up your character.”

Hermann sat up a little straighter. “I’ll have you know I’ve rolled up several.” He shuffled through a stack of papers and took out a few. “I’ll be playing a dwarf named Thorri Hammercrag, a dual-class cleric/wizard.”

Newt chuckled. “You can’t dual-class at first level.”

Hermann gave Newt a haughty look. “Of course I know that, Newton. I will be starting as cleric at first level. But I’ve planned out my character’s progression through level 20, and he will be a dual-class cleric/wizard.”

Newt opened his mouth, looking both amused and impressed. “You did this for several possible characters, without even knowing which one you’ll be playing?” When Hermann nodded, Newt laughed. “I don’t know why that surprises me at this point.” He turned to Mako and Tendo. “Trust me, you don’t have to do all that!” he said, to their relief. “You only need to choose a few skills, your stats, and some starting equipment. Here, I’ll help you.”

“Me, too,” Hermann added, and he and Newt started going through the book with Tendo and Mako. Mako thought about suggesting that Newt help Tendo while Hermann help her, since they were sitting next to each other, but Newt and Hermann both seemed determined to give advice to both Tendo and Mako. Sometimes they contradicted each other in their advice, but luckily they always gave Tendo and Mako final say in their characters.

Once everyone had a character, Newt turned to the group. “The three of you are up-and-coming heroes. You all meet in a tavern. You’ve known each other for years. The door opens--”

Tendo interrupted Newt to ask, “How do we know each other?”

Newt smiled and spread his hands in a gesture of invitation. “That’s up to you! How do you know each other?”

Tendo and Mako looked at each other nervously. “Um…”

Newt prompted them gently, “Maybe the two of you group up together? Or you served together on the town guard? Or perhaps you studied together somewhere?”

Tendo pointed to Mako. “She saved my life!”

“That’s awesome!” Newt exclaimed.

Tendo paused and raised his eyebrows at Mako. “If that’s okay with you.”

Mako felt her cheeks flush. “Well, if that’s what you want to do, then okay.”

Tendo nodded. “One day, I was walking in the woods, playing my lute and not watching where I was going. Suddenly, some bandits jumped out at me and demanded all my money! Luckily for me, Mako was nearby, and she came to my aid and killed all bandits.”

“Ah, let’s say I just chased them off,” Mako said quickly. “I don’t know if I would want to kill them!”

“Milady is as merciful as she is skilled!” Tendo exclaimed, pitching his voice a little lower as he spoke in character. He continued in his normal voice. “I was so impressed that I decided to follow her around to write songs about her great deeds!”

Mako, who felt all eyes on her, felt like her character should give Tendo’s something in return. “And in exchange,” she added, “I take Tendo to all the lost ruins in the forest so that he can bring back tales about them!”

“I love it!” Newt cried. He looked at Hermann, who was looking quite impressed at Mako and Tendo’s characterization. “What about Hermann? How do you two know him?”

An idea struck Mako. “He’s my uncle!” she declared.

Judging from the self-conscious way Hermann looked at her and stammered, he seemed pleased with the answer. Nevertheless, he felt compelled to point out, “I’m a dwarf.”

“So?” Mako asked, smiling.

Hermann smiled in surprise. “Ah. Right. Yes, of course, I think that’s a fine idea.”

“Great!” Newt said. “Like I was saying, you all meet in a tavern. The door opens, and a merchant runs inside with a frantic look in his eye. ‘Bandits!’ he exclaims. ‘Bandits have attacked my caravan!’ What do you do?”

Hermann, Tendo and Mako looked at each other, all suppressing smiles. Mako and Tendo deferred to Hermann, as the most experienced in the game. Hermann spoke in a gruff voice that retained a trace of his usual posh tone. “Fear not, humble merchant! My companions and I will help you, for we…” He paused and looked at Mako and Tendo, who nodded, both smiling widely not. Hermann continued, “...are heroes!”

 

The four of them met every Saturday when their schedules permitted it. Mako found herself looking forward to each game to see what Newt came up with next, or what Tendo and Hermann would do. Newt proved to be endlessly inventive, cunningly employing and then subverting fantasy tropes. Their first taste was when they discovered that the merchant who had given them their first quest was actually in league with the bandits and hoping to use the attack as an opportunity to collect insurance money.

Newt kept the campaign moving at a brisk pace, so that his players were always on their toes. Mako’s ranger Nalia found herself pursued by a league of faceless assassins, while Tendo’s bard Jerome discovered that he was the Chosen One spoken of in an ancient goblin prophecy. Newt seemed to especially delight in springing things on Hermann’s character, who soon found himself juggling several simultaneous curses. Thorri Hammercrag jingled when he walked and glowed in the dark, among other things. Hermann complained more and more with each curse, and Mako strongly suspected that the more he complained, the more he enjoyed himself.

The only times that the campaign got a little bogged down was when Newt went a bit overboard with the monsters. Each time a new monster appeared, he would take as much time as he could describing them. Even something as commons as an orc or a kobold would get minutes and minutes of detailed descriptions as Newt expounded on the angles of an orc’s tusks or the sheen on a kobold’s scales.

Mako was the first to notice that Newt usually believed that the monsters were more misunderstood than evil. This meant that it was often easier to talk their way out of trouble than to fight. Soon their characters had quite a network of friends and contacts in the monster world, and they spent one particularly memorable game session partying with a bugbear warlord to celebrate his daughter’s coming-of-age ceremony. Nalia narrowly avoided accidentally proposing to the young bugbear. Jerome made a small fortune in bugbear currency by winning a traditional bugbear pun competition with a convoluted series of puns ending in “Sorry to bug you, and thanks for bearing with me.” Meanwhile, a jingling, glowing, grumbling Thorri was followed around by a troupe of baby bugbears, convinced he was some kind of special toy.

 

Mako proved to have a brilliant mind for riddles and puzzles. One time, the party entered a temple and learned that a different line of a riddle was hidden in each of its trap-filled rooms. They found the first line behind a tapestry in the entrance hall:

_“The brighter the daylight…”_

“The stars,” Mako said after only a moment’s thought.

Newt gaped at her. “How did you know that?”

Mako shrugged. “I can’t really explain it. That’s just the way riddles are constructed.”

When she saw Newt glance forlornly at his pages of notes for the other rooms, she took mercy on him and they went through the other rooms, too, just to find out what traps Newt had prepared:

_“...the harder I am to see_

_Extinguish your torchlight_

_To get your best look at me.”_

 

Tendo made good on his offer to bring his guitar. He would often play a quick tune to accompany a roll of the dice, creating new lyrics for existing songs. Usually he only played quick snatches of songs, but when the campaign reached its climax, he opened the encounter with a song he had prepared for the occasion. Doing his best Johnny Cash impression, he sang:

 

Gold is a lovely thing

When questing for the king

Heroes brave the deadly ire

And dare to face the dragon’s fire

 

CHORUS:

We walk into the the lair of dragonfire

Ever up, up, up

We climb the twisting spire

And it burns, burns, burns

The dragonfire, the dragonfire

 

Thorri casts a resistance spell

Before we walk where dragons dwell

Nalia scouts the winding stair

As we ascend the worm’s dark lair

 

(Chorus)

 

We reach the top and then we face

The dreadful beast who rules this place

Jerome’s song inspires brave hearts

And each prepares to do their part

 

(Chorus)

 

Mako knew the game could not go on forever. The war against the kaiju was growing increasingly desperate, and it was harder and harder to find Saturdays where everyone was available. When the party returned the dragon’s head to the king, Newt milked the scene for all it was worth.

“Well done, brave adventurers!” Newt declared in the king’s voice. Mako wondered if Newt was doing a Stacker Pentecost impression on purpose, or if he simply defaulted to a voice like Stacker’s when portraying a character in charge. “You have saved the kingdom from this evil menace. Though, of course, not all dragons are evil, not even all chromatic dragons. Dragons are just as much unique individuals capable of determining their own moral code as any other sentient being....” Hermann harrumphed pointedly, and Newt got back on track. “You shall have your promised reward, and if there is anything else you desire, just name it, and it shall be yours. Within reason.”

“The safety of the kingdom is reward enough!” Hermann declared. His Thorri voice had gotten better over the course of the campaign, and was now barely posh at all. “Though the giant bag of gold is nice.”

“Is there nothing else you desire?” Newt asked.

Mako smiled at her friends. “When danger threatened the kingdom, heroes from different backgrounds set aside their differences and fought together. That is greater than any reward.”

“Any reward?” Newt prompted.

“Well,” Tendo began, grinning. The others started to grin, too, at the look on his face. “We wouldn’t say no to a second bag of gold!”


End file.
